O IS FOR OCTOPUS / OCEAN

~Punkin is 32 months old.~

Theme: Octopus / Ocean

Shape: Octagon

Number: 11

Color: Blue

New Sight Word: on

I am so late in getting this posted as life has just gotten crazy.....

I wasn't all that excited about doing the letter O because I felt I didn't have any really great themes to go along with it. But we did a few things with Octopus and Ocean this week. The week got away from me at the end with stuff going on, so we didn't do much towards the end of the week. This next week is going to be even crazier. I have had so many doctor appointments and other committments going on. In fact, this morning, Punkin woke up and asked, "Where are we going to go today, Mommy?" Yeah, I'm ready to stay home for a bit, but we still have a lot going on in the next few days. Good thing Punkin is so easy going ....

TOT TRAYS

Punkin really enjoyed our tot trays this week (the 2 days we got to do them). I still had out the St. Patrick's Day trays since we didn't get to them last week.

"Sweeping" up green split peas. She had to dump the peas into the rectangle and then sweep them up into the dust pan. This was harder than I had thought it would be because the dust pan and little broom were too big for the tray. So next time we do something like this, I'll have her dump it onto her work table and sweep up from there. I got this idea from The Preschool Experiment.

She enjoyed the green sensory bin with some gold coins hidden it.

Making a pot of gold rainbow using magnetic pom poms. I printed the sheet from 2 Teaching Mommies and made little colored dots in each circle to guide her as to what colors to put in each one. Punkin also used pom poms to match patterns in her egg carton trays. She'd match pom poms to stickers I had put in the top row to make a pattern, then have to replicate it in the bottom row. She really got into this tray.....Putting "spikey balls" into an empty baby wipes container, then using her tongs to transfer them back into her container. This was the first time she could really manipulate the tongs on her own without any prompts or quidance....and she loved it. She also spent quite a bit of time one day with this one..... I had cut up some green and gold bead necklaces (the ones you get at like the Dollar Tree), and put the beads into a little green St. Patrick's Day cup. I put that in her tray along with a small pitcher, a spoon, a little glass jar, and her tiny spaces ice cube tray. Then, I let her just do what she wanted with those items. She poured back and forth, she spooned them into the tray, she stirred, and she picked them up one by one with her fingers to put into the small spaces in the tray.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Capital and lowercase Oo sorting with some octopus. I got this from Creative Learning Fun. We replicated the Oo ocean animal page that I saw over at The Preschool Experiment. I just printed out some ocean animal pictures I found on google images. Punkin still loves using her dot markers each week to make her letters. Working on writing the letter Oo using this sheet from COAH.

Building the letter Oo.

We tried using a push pin to do a letter poking page on the carpet, which I thought she'd love, but she really wasn't all that excited about it. Doing a letter O dot-to-dot page from Making Learning Fun. Punkin used her dot marker to hunt for the letter Oo on this page from COAH. I showed Punkin how to make round balls with playdough, and then we added toothpicks to make sea creatures according to the number on the page she picked. (I got this idea from 2 Teaching Mommies.) After she made all her creatures, we lined them up in number order. In preparation for our next art project, I had Punkin practice her cutting skills by cutting on the lines I had drawn on blue paper. I was really super impressed with how she did all on her own! (Although, I had to hold the paper for her at the end when it got down to the last few and she didn't have as much paper to hold onto.) Then, I folded the strips, and she glued them onto the bottom of an O (that she had added googly eyes to) to make octopus legs, and she then glued on cheerios to each section of each leg.

Thanks, 2 Teaching Mommies, for the cute idea!

Punkin has known her common shapes for a long time, so we often just review all of them or focus on the "lesser known" shapes like octagon, hexagon, trapezoid, etc. This week, I set a variety of these lesser known shapes around the living room, and then I'd tell Punkin so "swim like a fish" to a certain shape and bring it to me.

MISC. FUN

We attempted to make an ocean in a bottle as described HERE. I thought it was neat, but it didn't hold Punkin's interest for very long. I wish I had had some little plastic fish or something to put in there to make it more interesting.

Punkin once again asked to play with bubbles in the sink. I had just gotten some new tupperware that needed cleaning, so I put them in the sink with the bubbles, and she "washed" them for me! :)

It was Grandma's birthday, so when they came over for her birthday dinner, Punkin "persuaded" Grandma to play with her Melissa and Doug dress up dolls with her. She has really been into this activity lately. She plays with it at least once or twice a day.

I got this little lap desk at a garage sale this week, and Punkin has loved "writing" at her little desk with her new markers.

And since she has been so into drawing, coloring, writing, etc. lately, I set up a little "art" caddy for her, so she can have access on her own to all her favorite supplies. She brings it to the table and spends lots of time drawing and writing.

And finally, something a bit random..... I had a lot of Lucky Charms left over from St. Patrick's Day, so I decided to make "rice krispie treats" using them. Punkin sure enjoyed them! I was going to have her help me make them, but I decided it requires too much over the stove work for her to really be able to be involved.

To see what other Tots were up to this week, go visit 1+1+1=1.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY FUN

~Punkin is 31 months old.~

Theme: St. Patrick's Day
Shape: Shamrock / Clover
Color: Green
Number: 11

We ended up having something going on every single morning this past week, so we didn't get to do any morning calendar time or tot trays (except the one below that I found she had gotten into one afternoon when I was using the restroom.) Therefore, we didn't really have much time to read all the St. Patrick's Day books or watch any videos that I had planned either. Oh well. I think we'll keep out the tot trays for next week (since I spent time getting them ready and she didn't get to play with them) even though we'll go onto our Letter O theme. Since we typically do our formal "tot school" learning time in the afternoons right after her nap, we were still able to get a lot of those activities done, and she even asked a few nights to do "schooltime" after dinner as well.

TOT TRAYS

This was the one tot tray she snuck in this week. She was infatuated with the flowers and sticking them into the styrofoam.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Clover Letter match from 2 Teaching Mommies.

St. Patrick's Day Symbol Size Sort from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Punkin used hearts to "build" colorful shamrocks by looking at example templates. I got the idea from The Activity Mom, but I made my own documents, since I don't have any felt or foam at the moment. (I also created a harder version using green patterns instead of different colors, but we didn't try that one.)

Hunting for our number 11 using a green dot marker.

Graphing Lucky Charm marshmallows using the printout from 2 Teaching Mommies. Punkin once again enjoyed the graphing activities this week, and she really grasped the idea of "building a tower" with her graphing pieces (versus putting them in any box or starting at the top).

She also spun a spinner with St. Patrick's Day pictures on it (from Musings of Me) and used stickers to graph her spins.

Punkin did great counting the cute St. Patrick's pictures on these count and clip cards from Musings of Me and then clipping her clothespins to the matching number. She really was able to do this without my help.

Punkin drew number cards and counted that many "gold coins" into her "pot of gold."

She also set shamrocks in number order, then counted that many gold coins onto each one.

For her snack one day, I had her count out green marshmallows onto her number box counting sheet. Then to eat them, she used a toothpick to "poke" each one. She called them "marshmallow lollipops."

We tried THIS shape snake game. I set out the foam cards and told her to find "the rectangle wth a 10 in it" for example.

Then, she laced it onto her yarn and tried to shake it to get it to the doorknob. But, I think she was too short or something, because it didn't work as well as I thought.

Punkin had so much fun with this activity. I saw this idea on Totally Tots and adapted it for this unit. I gave her one shamrock with a lowercase letter on it at a time. She told me what it was and the sound it made, then we sang the "Hokey Pokey" as she put it in and took it out of the box and we did the motions to the song. She LOVED it!

Then, after we did that for each letter, she'd take that letter and line it up in order on the carpet. When she was done, I told her she spelled the word "shamrock" and she walked down the line, saying each letter, and then proclaimed, "That spells shamrock!"

She loved this activity just as much. I wrote numbers 10-12 on about 10 shamrocks and hid them around the living room. Then, she hunted for them one at a time. Before each one she found, we sang this song to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell." (Adapted from a song in the G is for Green unit found HERE.)

We'll find a shamrock now.

We'll find a shamrock now.

And see what number is on it.

And then we'll take a bow.
Then, after she found a shamrock, she'd bring it to me, tell me the number on it, and take a bow. It was so funny!

ART / CRAFTS

A friend that I subbed for a few weeks ago gave me this extra shamrock template, so I had Punkin "paint" the shamrock with glue, and we sprinkled it with green sugar sprinkles. (I was going to use green glitter, but I couldn't find any, so we improvised.)

Using the idea from No Time for Flashcards, I printed out a shamrock template, and had Punkin glue green marshmallows around the edges. I was impressed with how well she did.

Punkin also made a shamrock by dipping her hand in green paint and making three green handprints. I saw this idea in the unit downloaded from HERE.

MISC. FUN

Punkin had so much fun making "Green Fizz." I saw the idea at I Can Teach My Child. I colored some vinegar with green food coloring and Punkin worked on using the medicine dropper (a skill we've been working on) to drop green vinegar on some baking soda. She kept doing this until she used up all the liquid. Each time she saw the fizzy reaction, she'd look at me and go, "OOOHH!"

On St. Patrick's Day, Punkin enjoyed a green muffin tin meal for dinner.....in our blue muffin tray. LOL! Anyway, she had green milk, green cottage cheese, celery, broccoli, green goldfish, green tortellini, and a green cookie.

She helped make those green cookies at Grandma's house on Tuesday. We just added some green food coloring to a sugar cookie mix. She "painted" on the frosting, dumped on the sprinkles, and even helped Grandma wash the dishes when they were done.

She also had fun peeling her first hard boiled egg....and taking a bite! She found out that she really likes hard boiled eggs.

And of course, she spend HOURS this week coloring and drawing on her pad of paper. She can spend LONG stretches of time just "writing" and "drawing."

That was our St. Patrick's Day theme! Thanks for reading. To see what other tots were up to this week, go to 1+1+1=1.